I realize that a great deal of time has elapsed since my last post. Some would take that as a topic and post about that, but it's not clear that posting about not posting counts as an actual post, so I will avoid that. My article's title is instead meant to convey that it's been a long time since I had some useful post, as in postal mail. Every day, my mailbox at home is full of stuff, but the ratio of useful to nonuseful stuff is high and growing as we approach the holidays.
Don't these people know I use the web to buy most of what I need? The countless catalogues keep piling up, and they just wind up at Reed School's recycling bin.
Now at work it's getting bad too. Besides the free soy sauce and subscription to Popular Mechanics, one perk of becoming a professor (full or otherwise) is that you get plied with books to try out for your courses. I tried to stem the tide this semester by not requiring any book for cs101 , but the publishers keep sending them. I have to sweep them off the porch every morning. Our office staff was commenting on the large pile of packages from Prentice Hall and how the postage alone must prop up the cost of books for students.
There seems to be a Java(tm) book for every kind of person who might find his or her way to programming in Java. Java for people who know C++, Java for scientific problem solving, Java for recovering theory professors. Not one of them is the kind of 101 book I'd like to see.
Maybe somebody will start publishing catalogues of Java books?
If only they published "Java for students who took one semester of AP Computer Science in High School and like to brag about their C++ knowledge by asking the TAs arcane questions that are often factually incorrect". [sigh] No one ever listens to my suggestions.
Posted by: Chris Hill Festival at November 6, 2002 11:20 PM
I think there is one: "Java for Dummies".
Posted by: Joe at November 8, 2002 11:57 AM